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BFF-25
ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN-KARABAKH-CONFLICT
Armenia lifts martial law months after Karabakh war
YEREVAN, March 24, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Armenia lifted martial law on
Wednesday, five months after the end of its brutal war with Azerbaijan over
the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The decision to lift the order came as part of a deal between Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the opposition to defuse a political crisis
sparked by Armenia’s crushing defeat in the six-week conflict.
Pashinyan’s critics have staged regular protests calling on him to resign
for his handling of the war since November when he agreed a ceasefire and
ceded swathes of territory to Azerbaijan.
Armenian law says a sitting prime minister cannot be removed during martial
law and the move to lift it came after Pashinyan agreed with the opposition
to hold fresh parliamentary elections in June to end the protests.
Parliament, which is controlled by Pashinyan’s allies voted Wednesday 118
to 1 with one abstention to lift martial law, which was declared September
27, the day clashes erupted in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Parliament speaker and Pashinyan ally Ararat Mirzoyan said Tuesday that the
ruling party would back the move “since a deal has been reached between
political forces on defusing the internal political situation through snap
polls.”
Armenia’s simmering territorial conflict with Azerbaijan ignited in
September into an all-out war that left more than 6,000 people dead.
The ceasefire brokered by Russia saw Pashinyan hand over large parts of
Azerbaijan that had been controlled for several decades by Armenian
separatists.
They had controlled the ethnic-Armenian region since they broke away from
Baku during a war in the early 1990s.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1438 hrs